We were cleaning around the house a couple weeks ago when my fiancee noticed that the wall by the shower was showing some water damage. When we cut out the piece of drywall, we also noticed that some of the tile on the floor were raised and uneven and popped them up as well. While the water damage wasn’t severe, you always want to catch these types of things as early as possible because mold growth and the like is something that can be handled easily when small, not so easily when much larger. We also weren’t happy with the existing tile anyway so ripping those up didn’t cause any heartache. The only part of the process that gave me some concern was the part about removing and reinstalling the toilet… mostly because it’s gross. (anyone who has ever done this can attest to it, that wax ring ceases to be a “ring” and ceases to look like anything but the epitome of grossness)

The tiles came up pretty easily, we cleaned up the subfloor nicely, and as we were going to install the tile, I quickly learned that the little tile cutting device I had was terribly inadequate. It was one of those hand scoring and cracking devices but with 12″ x 12″ tiles, the cracks would make it straight about two inches and then bent off on some weird angles. Anyway, I borrowed a friend’s wet saw (which must be used outside!) and was able to make some nice cuts with that.

The project itself, once we got going, took about three hours to complete with some waiting in between but now the bathroom looks spiffy! The old tiles were this dingy dirty inch by inch white tile that comes in sheets and the new ones are just painted ceramic (like the $1.50 a square foot variety from Home Depot) but they make all the difference. The bathroom is pretty small, maybe about five feet by five feet, but the project was fun (even the toilet part) and didn’t cost us a pretty penny.

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man, let me tell you that you should buy your friend a steak dinner for letting you use that wet saw. I’m currently tiling my kitchen and 2 bathrooms (about 250 sq ft) and I had the genius idea to rent a wet saw at home depot… for $64/day! and then I was about 10 minutes late to return and got the priveledge of paying another $14. At any rate, I got about 25% of the the work done for a cool $88.. what a waste of money. Then I realized my friend had a wet saw, and saved myself another $64/day. god bless the people who buy all those expensive tools…so I don’t have to!

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